Fictions is a spell that "conjures" imaginary representations from the point of view of the plant world, the generative place existing before consciousness, like thinking before thinking. For one year, ceramic sculptures were cultivated so plant life would grow on them like skin. Four Super8 cameras were made into a mobile, also filming in that way the process and their shared movement. To emphasize the fictitiousness of the footage, it was optically altered and re-printed; to accompany the notion of sculptures as possible torsos, containers for the heart, vocal sounds were recorded with Camila de Laborde.
- Oberhausen International Short Film Festival
Manuela de Laborde is an artist and filmmaker from Mexico City. Laborde’s practice, by abstracting concepts from their concrete properties, looks to create [virtual] spaces and [regenerate] the image. Inspired by simplicity of expression, economy of detail, location of exhibition, her practice is a meditation on physical presence. To the eye, her work carries aesthetic claims and pleasure; yet in its presentation is performative and in its purpose, conceptual.
In 2012 she exhibited her solo show, Maquettes, in Generator Projects, Dundee; in 2013 screened, Sun, at London MexFest with the live score of Camila Fuchs; her short films Viveros, The exponential Nature of Images and Le Visible et L’Invisible where shown at Antimatter FF, Jihlava IDFF and Milwaukee UFF; and this year her thesis film, As Without So Within, was screened at Toronto International Film Festival, Winnipeg WNDX (Best International Short), 25fps Festival in Zagreb (Grand Prix), FICM of Morelia and International Film Festival Rotterdam, New Directors MoMA + FSLC and VideoBrasil among others. Manuela is currently one of the ‘resident’ filmmakers for Oberhausen Film Festival - Conditional Cinema for which she is finishing her film, Ficciones. During October this year Manuela attended the artist residency at LIFT (Liason of Independent Filmmakers in Toronto).